People having low vision find it difficult or impossible to read small printed matter of the type that appears on bills, prescriptions, newspapers and the like. Thus, they often find it necessary to ask other people to read their mail for them. Many low vision people have to walk to a neighbor's house, for example, to request reading of a telephone bill.
Where the vision loss is not great, a simple magnifying glass may render small print readable However, the common magnifying glass has insufficient magnification to be of value to large numbers of low vision people.
One method developed by inventors to provide greater magnification or enlargement of printed matter includes the use of television sets. A small hand held camera is conductively coupled to a television set or other monitor and the low vision person aims the camera lens at the words or numbers sought to be read. The printed matter is transmitted by the camera onto the screen where it is enlarged up to sixty times depending upon the size of the screen. The result is a satisfactory enlargement that solves the problem for the majority of low vision people.
Examples of low vision reading aids of this type are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,136,361 to Doan (a hand held, pen light-type device), 3,993,865 to Browne et. al., 4,115,813 to Mikami, 3,816,646 to Cinque, 3,819,855 to Rush L et. al., and German patent 200 844.
Although these earlier devices have great utility, they still have several important limitations. For example, the units rely upon a bright light source to illuminate the printed matter, and the resulting glare prevents many low vision people from being able to read the enlarged letters and numerals on the screen.
Moreover, since in prior art devices the camera lens is spaced more than an inch away from the printed matter, skewing becomes a problem, i.e., the unit must be held at right angles to the printed matter to avoid distortion of the alphanumeric characters on the monitor.
Many of the earlier devices are also physically unstable when in use or in storage, i.e., they are knocked over easily.
However, the prior art, taken as a whole, neither teaches nor suggests how a light-in-weight device free from skewing problems, glare problems, and the like could be provided.